


As the World Caves in

by Webtrinsic



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Broken Bones, Claustrophobia, Club House collapse, Dead Georgie Denbrough, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Protective Eddie Kaspbrak, Protective Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, The Clubhouse (IT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: ...it's easy to find out what or more importantly who really matters.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough & Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	As the World Caves in

**Author's Note:**

> I just love hurting the losers, mainly richie and eddie as long as it gets them to realize they love each other.
> 
> sorry this ones kinda short lol, I'm still just tryna get my list done and honestly i lost inspo in this barely a paragraph in

They knew before they even descended down the clubhouses steps their sanctuary had been touched by someone who had no right to. As they slid beneath the surface the tension grew, Eddie practically clinging to the ladder as Stan picked up the torn out papers of his books, and Ben took down his torn posters.

Bill and Beverly sat fuming in the dead center of the clubhouse, while Richie gingerly picked up the torn down hammock, feeling Eddie’s eyes on him as he did so. Mike helped screw back in the Hammock’s screw before moving to check on the latter itself.  This decision forced Eddie to crowd in closer, instinctually seeking out the usual presence at his side. Richie didn’t seem to mind and or question it as Eddie encroached on his space.

The stale air around them bristled, the loose boards above whistling with the wind. The losers had yet to notice the loosened screws and removed nails, their retreat had been sabotaged. Badly enough that there was the risk of it becoming their tomb.

The list of places in Derry the losers adored was seemingly now only two places long, and with the clubhouse’s location known by someone unknown, although they had some idea of who it might be, the list came down to one.  The barrens, and even that wasn’t the safest of places, all it took was a misplaced shove or a soaring rock to cross that out too. Yet no matter what had, and what would potentially happen there, it seemed the good normally outweighed the bad, so they never could truly keep the place out of the back of their minds or their feet from stomping towards it.

“What do we do now?” Mike questioned softly, offering his hand to Stan who was still carefully kneeling on the ground, the pages of his bird books torn in his lap, little to be salvaged.

The teen’s attention automatically shifted to the head of their group, Bill. Instead of responding the way they thought he would, Bill looked around, stopping for a second to make eye contact with each and everyone of them.

“May-maybe we can b-build a new one,” he suggested, but they knew he didn’t really mean it, simply giving an option because there really was nothing else they could do.

“Build a new one? Dude that would take us like forty fucking summers to dig another trench. I’m-” Richie’s upset rant was cut off when Eddie's hand wrapped around his bicep, the asthmatic having done so when he realized where Richie’s rant would be going and how it was affecting his other friends.

A rather claustrophobic Ben didn’t need to indulge the thought of being accidentally buried alive, and Bill had been through enough this summer that Eddie felt Bill didn’t need to be on the ill receiving end of Richie’s motormouth.  They all didn’t take his anger personally, when something wrong happened it was normal for Bill, Richie, and sometimes Beverly to act out in anger. Eddie wasn’t entirely counted on that list because...sure he got angry but he mainly yelled, but that didn’t compare to Richie shoving Bill, or Bill going for a punch, or Bev swinging whatever was closest to her if she couldn’t keep her composure.

It was almost funny though because Eddie even without that, happened to be the only consistent fighter in their midst. In Ben’s words Eddie was more righteous than actively aggressive, because anger isn’t what Eddie acted from first, it was his protective fury and refusal to be stepped on.

They may have deemed Bill ‘Bill the brave’, but they often didn’t realize the true bravest in their group was the smallest teen with more fears than a skittish alley cat. And if they really thought about, it did make the most sense. The brave weren’t fearless, and the fearless weren’t automatically brave.

“We can always buy new posters and books. The hammock seems to be alright,” Beverly assured, trying to pull them back together. Ben and Mike were all too grateful to agree, nodding and discussing what they could do not only to fix what had been broken, but make it better than before.

After a beat of silence the teen’s nodded, moving into their normal routine as best they could with half their belongings trashed. Bill stuffed some of the loose fuzz from the opened beanbag back inside before he sat.  Eddie didn’t hesitate to place himself inside the hammock, knowing Richie would follow his example. A coincidental sneeze from Bill due to the dusted air hid the creaking sound of the beams holding their hideout up.

It took little time for them to adapt into a somewhat sense of normalcy even if a faint sense of unease sat among them. The ire almost entirely forgotten until it hit them all with a quick crackle as Mike unknowingly leaned against the loosest fixture.  More dust fell upon their heads and Richie acted almost supernaturally fast as he saw the support beam holding Eddie’s end of the hammock wobble. Tackling the smaller boy, the clubhouse collapsed in a roar of splintering wood and slosh of mud. 

Richie’s brain panged as he roused from consciousness, the beam having struck his head as he saved Eddie from the same fate. The smaller boy's face was pressed painfully against his collarbone, hopefully unharmed, but the breaths against his skin were brittle with half baked coughs and strained whimpers. The motormouth did his best to push himself up, trying to keep the weight pressing him down off of Eddie since he knew Eddie was being pressed down by not only that but him as well.

Richie’s head slowly fell back against the ground, blackness seeping into his vision, jolting when movement chased it away. The hypochondriac detangled his arms from where they were folded over his chest, reaching up and scraping against the rubble as he wound them around his crushes head. Cringing and pressing closer when he felt a warm wetness throughout the taller boy’s curls.

In his concern Eddie missed his own pain, stemming from his twisted ankle lodged under the other support beam.

“‘Chee?” He begged desperately, deaf to his other friends' cries and whimpers, the wreckage too thick and mind too hazy to pick anything up other than the boy on top of him.

“Please get up, wake up,” Eddie cried, knowing his muffled pleas went unheard.

* * *

“You could have died!” His mother dismays, sequestering him in his room after he’d been cleared from the hospital. Right ankle flaring in pain giving his mother an excuse to weigh him down with pain killers.

He took this bout of imprisonment like a slap to the face, tears springing in his eyes as his door was shut, the click of the lock making his tears do suicide runs down his cheeks. The list of injuries the doctor’s had been shouting for each of his friends ringing in his ears as his body worked against him.

_ Concussion, impalement, lung damage, broken shoulder, broken collarbone, dislocated knee, broken ankle, blunt force trauma. _

Eddie didn’t know which injury belonged to who, but he could guess that the concussion was Richie, and he himself had the broken ankle.  He hoped they weren't in any pain, praying they weren't as miserable as he.

* * *

Bill looked out of the window next to his bed, his knee aching and the tubes up his nose getting on his nerves. The dust had already been messing with him, the ransackers displacing it so it stuck in the air courtesy of the summer heat, giving him allergies.  When the clubhouse collapsed he’d inhaled enough dirt to have his diaphragm spasming. Arms flailing and clawing as he tore himself from the earth, scrapes lining his arms from either the rocks, wood, or nails.

An already startled Ben had mainly come out unscathed if not horrified, more bruised than broken, and Beverly had a piece of wood sticking out of her shoulder. Mike had gotten punctured by several nails, so had Stan who’d also broken his shoulder.

Eddie, Mike, and Ben had been able to go home after they’d gotten fixed up and a tetanus shot. Richie had to stay for his concussion, his collarbone not too much of a big deal compared to it. Bev was in a long surgery, splinters being carefully picked out of her skin.  Stan stayed at the insistence of his parents, afraid his puncture wounds would get infected even when the nurses assured they wouldn’t. 

Bill himself was miserable where he sat but Richie in the bed beside him looked a hundred times worse. Unable to sleep with his head mashed, unhelped by his incessant worrying about their short possibly purely pseudo asthmatic.

“You did good Rich,” Bill assured with some coughs threatening to choke him once more. They both knew what would have happened if the beam had folded in on Eddie. He’d likely have cracked his skull or broken his spine if it ended up bending him in half, Richie tackling him down before it fell had killed those possibilities.

Richie took the complement with a crashing nod. His smile was small before it faded. Sonia Kaspbrak forcibly yanking Eddie into a wheelchair and down the hall echoing in his mind as loudly as her shouting echoed throughout the halls.

He hated her so much. He probably hated her as much as he loved Eddie, and that was something he didn’t attempt to measure any longer. He knew his love couldn’t be put into words, nor could it be counted by numbers.  Richie decided not to think about it, not only because it hurt to do so but because he didn’t have to think about it at all. His heart loved and his brain simply tried to pick up on what.

A chuckle bubbled out of his lips, Eddie’s voice clear in his head.

“Stop thinking dipass or you’re never going to get better!” 

Okay, he could do that. He could do anything Eddie told him.

* * *

Eddie limped as quietly as he could to the window, unlocking it so when Richie eventually climbed up it would be ready. Struggling back to his bed and falling into the blankets with a gasp, his mottled back screamed in protest.  Sniffling, Eddie blindly reached out underneath his pillow to where he’d stashed a hawaiian shirt that Richie had left one night. Eddie wasn't looking forward to giving it back, but having it in his hands brought back the wonderful memory of his head resting on Richie’s although skinny, comfortable chest.

If his ankle wasn’t broken Eddie would have tried to scale the tree outside his window and visit Richie in the hospital. He knew that wouldn't have worked though, the second he walked through those doors someone would recognize him and call his mother.

The hypochondriac would just have to wait until Richie could climb up into his room. When he did, Eddie had a thank you in mind even if it was just a kiss to the cheek. A simple gesture for the boy who used himself as a human shield to save him from falling debris.

“Night ‘Chee, love you,” the teen murmured, hugging the obnoxiously colored shirt under his chin. 

Unknowing that when the nurses finally allowed Richie to go to sleep, the same sentiments left his lips, making a not yet sleeping Bill smile. The aspiring author hoped it didn’t take them any longer to say it in person, the tension was killing them all.

**Author's Note:**

> snap: allisonw1122  
> tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> insta: webtrinsic


End file.
